Committee of 100
If Angela Russell and Tillie Walker clarified what Native and African Americans had in common, the following statement emphasized what made Native rights “civil rights of a different order.” Signaling a break with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the National Indian Youth Council served as one of the organizers of the Native contingent in the Poor People’s Campaign. Confrontation, if not violence, became its voice in May and June 1968, as thousands of poor people and their advocates descended on Washington, D.C., established Resurrection City, testified in Congress, and took to the streets. Mel Thom (Walker River Paiute), Hank Adams (Assiniboine), Tillie Walker, and Victor Charlo (Flathead), among others, prepared the way in late April as members of the Committee of 100, an interracial group that presented the coalition’s demands to President Lyndon Johnson’s cabinet. Compare the tone and core ideas of this statement to those found in the NCAI, Dozier, and Chicago conference documents. Does knowing that the Indian committee members sang “We Shall Overcome” with a diverse group of non-Indians on their way to this confrontation confirm or challenge the fear of having Native rights conflated with civil rights?50
We have joined the Poor People’s Campaign because most of our families, tribes, and communities number among those suffering most in this country. We are not begging. We are demanding what is rightfully ours. This is no more than the right to have a decent life in our own communities. We need guaranteed jobs, guaranteed income, housing, schools, economic development, but most important—we want them on our own terms.
Our chief spokesman in the federal government, the Department of Interior, has failed us. In fact it began failing us from its very beginning. The Interior Department began failing because it was built upon and operates under a racist, immoral, paternalistic, and colonialistic system. There is no way to improve upon racism, immorality and colonialism; it can only be done away with. The system and power structure serving Indian peoples is a sickness which has grown to epidemic proportions. The Indian system is sick. Paternalism is the virus, and the Secretary of the Interior is the carrier.
Foremost, we demand to be recognized for what we are. Most of us are groups of tribal families. We are not white middle-class aspiring groups of people in need of direction. We do not understand why Indian tribes cannot select their own Superintendents. In fact, the need for a Superintendent can indeed be questioned. Why must we beg for administrative support for our communities? Why must we beg for lease money, per capita payments, and Indian Bureau Services, when they are rightfully ours?
American Indians have the political units, land bases, and are competent but we cannot use these resources because we are not allowed to control anything or to make any basic choices except to get out. That is no choice.
The political structure is systematically controlled by the government and special interest groups who exploit us. This must end. We do not understand why Indian tribes cannot tax railroads which cross their lands, or why we do not have the power to tax non-Indians living within the boundaries of our reservations.
We recognize that the Department of the Interior, more particularly, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has taken some measures toward involving tribes in decision-making. We also recognize these measures for what they are—tokenism. The advisory committees, such as the National Indian Education Advisory Committee, Secret Task Forces, President’s committees and commissions, are only convenient means to implement an already established policy.
We demand an end to racism in the schools, public as well as federal. The school system has been the beginning of racism for Indian children. Indian children are systematically told that they should relate to an Indian who is successful in the eyes of the white man rather than to his own family or tribe. Our Indian children are discouraged from understanding their families and communities as they really are. The Indian student dropout rate is as high as 60%, and no one is asking what is wrong with America’s school system. They only ask and blame the Indian communities for this high dropout rate.
We need more than just Indians in teacher and counselor capacities. We must also demand that these teachers and counselors be directed by and responsive and responsible to the respective Indian communities. Besides being a demand, this is equally a just and practical measure to answer the problem that is baffled Indian educators since that became a field.
Some recognition has been given to the need for bicultural education. However, we are fearful that we have once again become victimized by paternalism. Let it be understood that we do not want our children being told by white or white-oriented Indian education experts what we were, what we are, and what we should be.
We do not understand why people from the Indian communities cannot speak to graduating Indian classes, from BIA and in public schools, where there is a majority of Indian students.
In conclusion, we make it unequivocally and crystal clear that Indian people have the right to separate and equal communities within the American system—our own communities, that are institutionally and politically separate, socially equal and secure within the American system.
We asked to be heard—not just listened to and tolerated. In World War I, World War II, and the Korean Conflict, American Indians had the highest volunteer turnout per capita than any other ethnic group in the country. Now some American Indians are becoming dissatisfied with rather than proud of their country and are going to jails rather than serving this country in battle.
The inequality and dissatisfaction that is evidencing itself cannot be taken lightly. The oppressed can only be oppressed for so long.